The Naming of Doctors (or) Every Wise Man Doth Know
by Clever Lass
Summary: The part-human Doctor asks for Rose's help in choosing a name that he'll be using for the rest of his life in the parallel universe. John Smith just won't cut it this time.


_Note: Names are a hobby of mine. I love interesting, unique, and meaningful names. This story is a direct result of my reading one too many stories in which the Doctor 10.2 goes by "John Smith" in the alternate universe. I like to think that someone as creative as the Doctor, in choosing a name to use for the rest of his life, would be a little more imaginative and put a little more thought into it than that. _

_This is my first Dr Who fic, and it takes place a week or two after "Journeys End."  
_

"Journeys end in lovers meeting,  
Every wise man doth know."  
― William Shakespeare, _ Twelfth Night _

* * *

"Ah, there you are!" The Doctor spoke as if seeing Rose sitting at Pete and Jackie's dining table eating toast were the highlight of his whole morning.

"Here I am!" Rose responded with a smile, before she shoved the last bite of toast into her mouth. She swallowed and took a sip of tea. "What'cha need?"

"Need you to help me with a project," he replied. He reached for her teacup and took a big gulp.

"Oi!" Rose protested.

"Sorry. Never can resist Rose tea."

"It's PG Tips."

His grin widened and he took another swallow, giving her a wink over the top of the cup.

Rose laughed. "Give it me back!" she demanded, wresting the teacup from his hand. She took another sip. "Oh, now it's all Doctor-flavored."

"All the better for you, I'm sure," he replied smoothly.

Rose snorted in amusement and finished her tea. She stood up. "Right. What's this project, then?"

The Doctor rummaged through his pocket and pulled out a paperback book, which he tossed onto the table.

Rose picked it up. "1,000 Baby names?" she read aloud. She slanted a suspicious look up at him. "Don't tell me you're pregnant with Donna's baby?"

"Oi!" he protested. "I may have picked up a lot of Donna's characteristics, but the ability to bear children is _not_ one of them!"

Rose chuckled. "So are you getting a puppy? What are we naming?"

"Not what, Rose. Who."

"Fine. Who are we naming?"

He took a heroic pose with his feet apart, hands on his jacket lapels, and raised an eyebrow at her.

"What, _you_?"

"Why not?"

"Thought you had a name already. Isn't 'Doctor' your name?"

"Well, yes, but it's a Time Lord name. Chose it myself! But now I'm half-human—_well,_ part human—_well,_ slightly human—stuck with humans, in any case, and I'm going to need a human name."

"What about good ol' John Smith?"

The Doctor grimaced and shook his head. "That's a fake name. Sounds like a fake name. Always used it as a fake name. Everyone knows it's a fake name whenever they hear it. It's a fake name that hides the real me. What I need now is a real name that represents the real me. I need you to help me choose it."

Rose shook her head a little. He had delivered that explanation at his usual 90 miles an hour, and it took a moment for her brain to process what he'd said.

"Okay," she agreed. "But what do you mean, a 'Time Lord' name? Tell me about Gallifreyan naming conventions." She sat back down, and the Doctor sat next to her and bumped her gently along the bench to make room.

"Well," the Doctor began. "The naming of Time Lords is a difficult matter."

"Oh?" Rose asked, utterly deadpan. "It isn't just one of your holiday games?"

"'You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter when I tell you a Time Lord has _three different names_!'" the Doctor finished, chuckling. "Rose, when did you read T. S. Eliot?"

"I had to pass the time somehow during all your never-ending Tardis repairs. Anyway, tell me about the three different names. And if you tell me one of 'em's Mungojerrie, you can expect a smack forthwith."

"Nah, I'm more of a Mister Mistofelees," he said.

"'Oh, well, there never was a cat so clever as magical Mister Mistofelees,' eh?" Rose sang. "'M surprised you're not bowed over under the weight of all that ego!"

"Oi!" the Doctor protested. Then he grinned in acknowledgement. "All right, it may be just a bit big."

"A bit? Ha! A _huge_ bit, you mean. Anyway, what about the Gallifreyan names?"

The Doctor explained. Gallifreyans, being loomed instead of conceived and born, were usually given a multisyllabic name by their parents. Gallifreyans who were likely to become Time Lords were often just given their loom designation, which served them as a name until they were 8, old enough to look into the untempered schism and choose their own names. "I chose to be called the Doctor, partly because my given name was just a loom designation, and partly because it seemed to fit me. I wanted to make people better."

"That makes sense. So what was your loom designation, then?"

The Doctor hesitated.

"Was it like 'Gallifreyan boy 5-A' or something?" Rose asked. Seeing his uncomfortable expression, she clarified. "I'm not teasing, I'm just curious. You don't have to tell me."

"The thing is," the Doctor said slowly, "Time Lords also have another name, that's given to them by the Time Vortex itself. That's my real name, but it's also one of the universe's biggest mysteries. It's a name of true power. There's only a handful of times in my entire life—lives, really—when I'm even capable of speaking it."

"Is that your loom designation?" Rose asked, confused.

"Oh! Oh, no. That was Theta Sigma. Close enough to 'Gallifreyan boy 5-A,' now you mention it. Some of my friends at university still used it, though I prefer 'Doctor.'"

"So what's all that stuff about your Time Vortex name about, then?" Rose asked.

"I don't know whether it's really my name anymore," the Doctor told her soberly. "Considering that I'm a unique instantaneous biological meta-crisis of Time Lord and human female, I question whether I have the right to that name now. Technically I wasn't the one the Vortex named that. If I were to say it aloud in this universe, what would happen to the fully Time Lord Doctor in the other?"

"It's really that powerful?" Rose questioned.

He gave her one serious, decisive nod. "It's really that powerful."

"Okay, then. We'll avoid the Time Vortex name." Rose fell silent for a moment and then chuckled.

"What?" he asked, suspicious.

"Well, it's just that… well, that explains those times when you get lost in your own mind and turn unresponsive on me."

"What do you mean?"

Rose giggled and mis-quoted T.S. Eliot. "Your mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation of the thought of your name. Your deep and inscrutable, singular, Name."

The Doctor laughed. "That's it. How did Eliot know? And what does 'effanineffable' mean, anyway?"

"Maybe he was fed up," Rose suggested. "With all those 'effin' ineffable cats!"

The Doctor dissolved into giggles.

Rose loved that, loved that she could make him laugh so hard. He never used to be able to laugh without a note of cynicism in it, mocking himself for being able to laugh at all, after what he had done. This new non-regeneration/metacrisis seemed to have left the guilt behind—because, after talking about it shortly after the Time-Lord Doctor's departure, they both decided that genocide had been the way to go after all. No regrets. Both regretted the necessity, but neither regretted the action.

This human Doctor had enough of Donna's sense of humor combined with more of the qualities she had missed in her old leather-clad Doctor—the ability to sit still, the ability to shut up once in a while—that she found him even easier to be with than the Time Lord Doctor.

"I love that," he finally said, starting to calm down. "I love you. You're so delightfully vulgar sometimes. I love it. What happened? You never used to be."

"I was always trying to impress you with how highbrow I could be, Powell Estates be damned," she told him. "Now? After what I went through to get you back, I reckon that you can jolly well put up with a bit of language!"

His jaw dropped and he looked at her like she had two heads. "You are kidding me!" he said with a Donna-like inflection. "Rose! Did you ever _meet_ my ninth incarnation? Perhaps you may remember—ears, leather, and swore like a sailor?"

"What?!" she cried. "You never did!"

"What?!" he exclaimed. "What?! How could you have never heard me?!" He frowned, his brown eyes full of confusion. "Wait a minute. Did she—" He shook his head. "Oh, she did. That little minx."

"Who did? What did she do?" Rose asked. "Who's this 'she,' hmm?"

He sighed. "It's the Tardis. She cleaned up my language for you. She must have done. Bit of a prude, she is. Always has been."

Rose burst out laughing. "So now I'll get to hear the real, un-Bowdlerized Doctor, is that it?"

"Unedited," he agreed. "Director's cut."

"Complete and unabridged!"

"The definite article!"

"The Real McCoy!"

"Authentic, unalloyed, bona-fide Doctor. It's a pity, though," he said, looking at her sadly.

"What is?"

"I don't swear nearly as much in this body. If you wanted to hear really blue language, you should have heard me before. 'Course, I didn't always swear in English, but still."

"Aw, now you got my hopes all up only to dash 'em. That's all right, though. You spend enough time with me, you're bound to pick it up again."

The Doctor slid his arm around her and planted a kiss on her temple. "I really want to spend enough time with you, but I'm not sure it's possible."

Rose gave him a suspicious look. "Why? Is something going to happen?"

"Well, not that I know of. I just meant I don't think it's possible to spend enough time with you. I mean, I want to spend a lot of time with you, obviously, and I'm hoping to get the chance to, now that we're both in the same universe and all. I just don't know if it's going to be enough, with no Tardis so we can go back and visit past days that have gone by. It'll just be one day at a time, you see, and I've never done that before. Well, except for my third incarnation—and how ironic is it that I've been exiled to Earth, _again,_ and this time I did it essentially to myself? I really ought to find another roadster, you know that? I loved my little yellow roadster back then. Named her Bessie." He paused. "What?"

Rose was shaking her head slowly, mouth hanging open. "You were right, you know," she said.

"Right about what?"

"When you first regenerated. Rude, not ginger, and with one _hell_ of a gob!"

"Oh! Was I babbling again?"

"You started out with what sounded as if it might have been a nice compliment to me, but before you got there you went off in four other directions. If you're not planning to get back to the compliment, can we get back to the topic at hand?"

The Doctor grinned ruefully. "See, that's what I love about you. Always asking the right questions. And the compliment was that I could spend every day and night for the rest of my life with you, and it still wouldn't be enough time. Sorry I didn't get to it before—I'm just not good at romance and love and all that stuff. It's all so—"

"Domestic?" Rose supplied.

He nodded. "Well, yeah. I don't have much practice at—well, you might know I'd be rubbish at it."

"At what?"

"You know, the wooing and winning and all that."

"If it helps, I'm pretty much won already, Doctor. And you give awfully nice compliments without even realizing it, so don't worry about giving me pre-planned ones, ok?"

"I do?"

"Yeah. You just told me I always ask the right questions, and that you love it when I talk dirty."

The Doctor's face flushed red and he broke into giggles again.

Rose laughed along with him and then pulled the book over and opened it up. "All right," she said, grinning. "What sort of a name are you looking for?"

"One that sort of represents the real me."

"So you want a human name that somehow represents a 9-century-old Time Lord stuck in a part-human body, and that somehow means that you want to make people better?"

The Doctor thought that over for a moment, and then nodded. "Pretty much."

"You're insane," Rose told him.

"No, wait. We can do this! There has to be a name like that somewhere."

Rose flipped through the book. "Let's see. Todd? Lawrence? William?"

"No, I've known Williams and Todds before. Didn't like them."

She flipped through the book a little more and then closed it and sighed. "See, here's where you're going to have a problem. You're old enough that you've probably met someone named every single name in this book, and your choice is going to be influenced by what kind of a person each one of them was. Are you sure you don't want to just make up a whole new name?"

The Doctor thought a minute. "I take your point about the book. It's backwards, though. You look up the name and then you find out what it means. Wouldn't it be better to look up the meaning first, and then choose a name that has that meaning?"

"Ah! For that, you want the internet!" Rose said. "Come on!" He followed her into the study, where she fired up the computer and within a moment or two had a name-meaning lookup site loaded and ready.

"What sort of meanings do you want, then?" She handed him a sheet of paper and a pen. "Make a list. Just jot down whatever pops into your head when you think of yourself."

He took then and sat down next to her, scribbling rapidly over the paper. A moment later he pushed it over to her. He had covered it with words like _clever, intelligent, genius, smart, lord, time vortex, death, storm, dangerous, human, doctor, healer, man, earth, destroyer, alien, old, ten, thirteen, destruction, guilt, liar, murderer, lover._

Rose read the paper, eyebrows climbing. "Uh-huh," she said. "Tell you what—we'll concentrate on the positives, yeah? 'Cause some of these aren't what you want to be callin' yourself."

"They all describe me, though," he pointed out. "Only a few drops in the bucket, but then, to be fair, the bucket is _very_ large."

Rose blinked at him.

"What?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Sorry. It's just—you _really_ reminded me of Jack just then."

"Oi!"

She ignored his cry of protest and went on. "How about we try and describe you the way you want to be, instead of the way you have been? I know you still carry around a lot of guilt—I saw what Davros did to you back there."

"What?"

"Oh, right, that was the other Doctor—but still, if you're the same man, you'd probably have reacted the same way."

"Rose," he said, putting a hand on top of hers. "What did Davros say? How did I react?"

Rose told him about the pain on his face as Davros had pointed out the violence and death in the Doctor's past with such relish. How Davros had flung words like darts, and every word had stabbed the Doctor right in the hearts.

"You looked—or maybe I should say _he_ looked—so sad and guilty he couldn't even cry. I came up and held his hand, but nothing really helped."

The Doctor smiled and squeezed her hand. "Oh, I wouldn't say that. Can you imagine how I—or he—would have reacted to that, _without_ the support of the woman he loved?"

"Yeah?" Rose asked, pleased.

He nodded decisively. "No question. Anyway. Subject at hand: describing myself the way I want to be. Let's see, now." He pulled the paper back over in front of himself and started crossing off words. "Nope. Nah. Don't want to be that. No, no longer—they're all gone now. Nope, that's not for me anymore."

He was left with the following list: _intelligent, human, doctor, healer, man, earth, ten, lover. _He thought in silence for a long moment, and then scribbled back in _death._

Rose picked up his hand in hers, and held it against her cheek. "Why'd'ya add that last one back in?" she asked.

"A few reasons," he admitted. "Link with my past, link with my future—as I only have a normal human lifespan now—and an acknowledgement that, as some Bad Wolf once said, 'everything must come to dust. Everything dies.'"

Rose shrugged self-consciously. "Why's it a link with your past?" she asked.

"The Greek word for death is _thanatos,_ which is represented by the Greek letter _Theta._ Theta was my loom designation as a child, and my nickname at university."

"Okay," Rose said, writing _Theta_ on another piece of paper. "It sounds like that's a good one that you have a lot of reasons for choosing. How about another one a little less… I dunno, morbid? Humans in the Western world usually have three names, and sometimes even four."

The Doctor thought a moment and then pointed to _Earth._ "There. That one."

"Why Earth?"

"It's been my favorite planet for most of my life, in every single incarnation I've had. And that's your planet, too. And you're my favorite human in all my life. It fits. I need to have 'Earth' as part of my name, somehow."

Rose wrote it down. "Okay!" she said in a _whatever you say_ tone of voice. "How about one or two more, and then we can figure out variations and combinations that you like?"

The Doctor hunched his shoulders. "I dunno. I really can't lose—Rose, I have to have _doctor_ in my name. I just have to. It's who I am."

"Well, you can still keep it as a title, can't you?"

"It's not a title for me, though. It's an actual name. It's _my_ name. It has to stay part of my name. Doctor or healer, either one, but I have to have it."

Rose wrote _doctor/healer_ on the paper.

The Doctor frowned in thought, tapping the pen against his lips. "One Greek name," he said thoughtfully. "I really ought to have a Latin name as well. Possibly a Hebrew or Sumerian one as well. The oldest languages on Earth."

"Hold on a minute," Rose said, typing rapidly on the computer. "How about this?" She pointed at the screen.

"'Gaius,' from the Latin, meaning 'of the Earth,'" the Doctor read aloud. "'Variant: Caius.' Hmm."

"There's always 'Adam,' which means 'made of earth,'" Rose teased.

The Doctor shuddered. "Not Adam!"

Rose frowned for a moment, puzzled, and then laughed. "Oh, yeah! Adam Mitchell! I forgot about him!"

"Gaius," he mused. "Gaius. No, I think I like the variant better. Caius. Oh! Maybe I could have a nickname! Cai. Like Sir Cai of the Round Table, what'd'you think?"

"Wasn't he King Arthur's brother or something?"

"Foster brother. Oh, want to go meet him? We could do that, you know, as soon as the Tardis is grown. 'Nother few years and we'll be all set!"

"Sure, I'd like that. So now we have Caius and Theta, and something that means doctor or healer. Let's see." She typed a little more and then pointed at the screen.

"Jason?" he read. He made a face. "Well, it's Greek, and it means _healer,_ but it's a bit—"

"What?"

"Common. I mean, lots of people named Jason. Don't like it. Want to stand out more."

"Well, how about this variant?" Rose asked, pointing at the screen.

"Galen? Well, that's not so bad, is it?"

"It's also Greek, and it also means _healer,_" Rose pointed out.

He nodded. "So it does. _Galen._ Galen Caius. Caius Galen. Caius Theta Galen. Caius T. Galen. Cai Galen."

His eyebrows went up just as Rose turned to look at him with a smile. "Oooh, I like that one!" he said, and she nodded eagerly. "Cai Galen. C.T. Galen."

"Cai," she said. "Doctor Cai Galen."

"I like it," he remarked.

"So, any other words on the list that you simply can't do without? You have a Latin name and two Greek ones. Didn't you say you wanted a Hebrew or Sumerian one too?"

"I don't have to, though. _Well_, it'd still be nice. _Well_, yeah, now that you mention it, I wouldn't mind," he replied. He pulled the paper back over. "Intelligent. Hmm."

Rose gave him a wry look. "Does it need saying?" she asked drily.

He flushed a little bit and chuckled. "I guess not. Cheeky! Hmm. Human, man, ten, lover." He waggled his eyebrows at her over that last one.

"'S nice, but it seems kinda personal to put right there in your name. Plus, we do love each other, but we aren't exactly _lovers_ just yet."

"Rose Tyler," the Doctor told her quietly. "We are so much more than lovers that the mind boggles at the concept. Just because we haven't been physically intimate yet does _not_ make us any less lovers than any other couple. I do, however, take your point that it may be too personal to make into part of my name."

Rose hugged him tightly and kissed his cheek.

He smiled and winked at her. "That's not to say I'm not looking forward to the physical intimacy very much, you understand," he said in a low voice. "Just that we needn't depend on it to love each other."

Rose smiled. "I get it, Doctor." She pointed at the paper. "I would think that _human_ and _man_ are both redundant and obvious, which leaves us with _ten_. What's the significance of ten?"

"Well, you know I can regenerate when I die, right?" he said.

"Yeah. Seen it, remember?"

"Well, I can do it thirteen times before I have to stop doing it and die for good. This body is my tenth. Technically, it's my eleventh, but I honestly don't think it counts because it's still made from part of my tenth—it's not total cellular reconstruction. I guess you could call me version ten-point-two," he said with a grin.

"Oh… kay," Rose said. "So why is _ten_ significant enough to be part of your name?"

"Oh, well, it's the most important number in most mathematical systems, and in most of the sciences," he explained. "And you know me and math, and me and science. And plus, well, I just like it. I've always been fond of ten, and now I'm the tenth incarnation of the doctor, so maybe we could fit ten into my name somehow."

"What's ten in Hebrew?" Rose asked.

"It looks rather like an apostrophe, only in the middle instead of the top. It sounds like 'esher,'" he said.

"Escher?" Rose asked. "Like the mathematician who did all those freaky paintings?"

"Oh!" The Doctor exclaimed. "Rose, you are _brilliant_!" He smacked a loud kiss onto her forehead. "M. C. Escher! Oh, I did always like him. Very intelligent man. Quirky sense of humor. Is he the same in this universe, then? Oh, I'd love to go meet him again!"

"The artwork is a little different, but follows the same lines," Rose said. "So, you're going to want Escher as one of your names, then?"

The Doctor thought about it and then nodded decisively. "I'll spell it the way he does, and that way only you and I will get the Hebrew pun about the number ten," he said with a grin. "I like that. It'll be like a secret code between us!"

"That'll work," Rose said, laughing. "So what order do you want them in, then? Do you want any other names?"

"Oh, I think four will be plenty, considering I've had a millennium of just one," the Doctor said. "Let's see, now. Caius Escher Theta Galen. Caius Theta Escher Galen. Caius T. E. Galen. Caius E. T. Galen."

"E.T.?" Rose asked, giggling. "Like Extra-Terrestrial?"

The Doctor burst out laughing. "I didn't think of that! Pity we won't be able to phone home!" He laughed some more. "That's it. Caius Escher Theta Galen. That way I get to sneak in my ten, and I also get a pun about not being from Earth! I love it!"

"So is this it, then? Are you named? 'Caius Escher Theta Galen'?"

He nodded. "That's it. Cai E. T. Galen. Doctor Galen, people would call me," he said.

"'Cept me," Rose said. "I'd just call you _Doctor,_ unless you wanted me to call you Cai."

"Well, I don't know, do I?" the Doctor replied. "Call me it a few times and let's see."

Rose turned around and stood up, right into the circle of his arms. She grabbed his lapels and pulled him down into a thorough kiss. "Good morning, Cai," she purred when it was done.

"Guh," the Doctor said, mouth hanging open.

"Cai and Rose," Rose whispered, trying them out together. "Rose and Cai. Galen and Tyler. Tyler and Galen. Doctor Galen and Rose Tyler." She stood on her toes and kissed him again. "I think we sound good together, don't you… Cai?"

"Fantastic," he breathed, hearkening back to an older catch-phrase, and pulled her closer again.

After that kiss, he pressed his forehead against hers and suggested quietly, "How about 'Doctor and Mrs Galen'?"

"Is that a proposal of marriage?"

"It is."

"I accept," she whispered back, beaming. "But you should know it wouldn't be 'Doctor and Mrs Galen, Doc—uh, Cai."

"Oh?"

"Nope," Rose said happily. "It'd be Drs Galen, or Drs Tyler and Galen. I went back to school here while I worked for Torchwood, and got my Ph.D."

"No!" the Doctor exclaimed, jaw dropping. "You are kidding me! You're telling me that you're _Doctor_ Rose Tyler now?!"

"Yep!"

He threw his arms around her. "You are the cleverest, kindest, most brilliant, and beautiful woman in the entire universe, you know," he said, laughing with delight. "I am so proud of you!"

"Thank you!" Rose replied, laughing. "You're not half bad yourself, you know!"

The Doctor sobered. "Wait a minute! How long were you here, anyway?"

Rose stopped laughing. "You really want to know?"

"Of course."

"About nine years."

"Nine years! I had no idea! It was only about two for me, give or take. What's your doctorate in, then, _Doctor_ Tyler?"

"Oh, quantum physics. How else do you think I was able to build a time machine out of a dead Tardis and a bunch of mirrors, hmm, Doctor?"

He shook his head in wonder, staring at her with a smile. "Rose, you will never cease to amaze me.

She grinned. "Yeah?"

"No question. Donna may have been the most important woman in all the universes a week ago, but you, Rose Tyler… you're the most incredible woman I've ever met. And you seriously want to marry me?"

She nodded. "I seriously do. 'Course, Mum will probably think it's too soon—"

The Doctor made a rude noise. "Jackie Tyler can damn well keep her opinions—and her slapping little mitts—to herself! I've been without my Rose for altogether too long, and I don't want to waste another single minute without you."

Rose made her opinion known non-verbally, smiling widely when she finally ended the kiss. "Thought you didn't swear as much in this body?" she teased.

He shrugged. "She earned it!" he said, pulling her close again.

"No argument from me!" Rose replied, laughing with joy, finally in her Doctor's arms.

* * *

_Note: Many references are made to Ol' Possum's Book of Practical Cats, by T. S. Eliot-the original text of the famous Broadway musical "Cats." Also, the concept of the Tardis censoring the Doctor's language is one that I nicked from Torchwood85's excellent story "**Something for You**," located here. s/8124308/1/Something-for-You Make sure you check it out, 'cause it's really good!  
_


End file.
